


The Beast Within

by BrightneeBee



Category: 2 Broke Girls, Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Anal, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Ballet Bros, Blood & Gore, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Blood Loss, Blood Lust, Blood Play, Bottom Steve Rogers, Darcy Lewis in the Middle, Double Penetration, F/M, Foreplay, Kissing, Light Dom/sub, Mild S&M, Multi, Oral Sex, Past Relationship(s), Past Violence, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Strip Tease, Super Soldiers Smell Good, Threesome - F/M/M, Top Bucky Barnes, Vampire Darcy Lewis, Vampire-Wolf-Human Triad, Werewolf Bucky Barnes, ballerina Natasha Romanov, rude waitresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:41:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23011150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightneeBee/pseuds/BrightneeBee
Summary: It all happened so fast, and Darcy didn’t even scream.Something lunging for her throat. Sharp teeth ripping into her flesh. Vicious suckling. And there was nothing Darcy could do to stop it. He was so much stronger than her, the bones of her arms crushed under his grip as he kept her there, flush against his front. A pitiful existence flashed before her eyes as her life was drained away, and then hands on her face. There were hands on her face, then…Crack...
Relationships: Clint Barton/Laura Barton, Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis, James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers, Past Darcy Lewis/Damon Salvatore, Past Darcy Lewis/Elijah Mikaelson, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 24
Kudos: 228





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Explicit. 
> 
> No regrets.

PROLOGUE

  
  


1492

England

Darcy followed Lady Katherine into the dark of the night, at the behest of her lords, Elijah and Klaus. It was either obey, or disappear like so many other servants had in the past. Female servants, especially. She wanted to live more than she wanted to protect Lady Katherine from whatever the strange lords had planned. Darcy was baseborn, but she had never been confused with being unintelligent. 

The highborn men kept strange hours. Women went into their rooms, but never left. There were times when the corridors, the banquet hall, the kitchens, the guest chambers were bathed in blood. It left a pink stain in the stones, and a stale, metal smell in the air. There were nights when Darcy was called for, stirred from sleep, to help the remaining servants scrub viscera from the cracks in the floors and walls, pools of blood on the cold stones underfoot and splashed across the walls. Utter bloodbaths. Yet, no one with any sense questioned it. The ones who gossiped seemed to disappear without a trace, or walked around in a trance state. 

Demons, is what came to mind. Vampires, Darcy suspected. But she kept her mouth shut. Lord Elijah compensated the few servants that remained loyal and quiet very well, and seemed to protect Darcy from his younger brother, Kol. He seemed to hide Darcy from Lord Klaus’ eye, as well. 

Therefore, Darcy fled into the night and the dark, skirts hiked up above her pale knees, heavy bosom heaving over the top of her corset, as she attempted to keep up, but remain unnoticed. Lady Katherine had stolen something important from Lord Klaus, and fled under the cover of darkness with another servant, Trevor. Darcy didn’t know what Lady Katherine had stolen, and she didn’t want to know. She was asked to follow, and that was what she did. 

Again, Darcy knew when to keep her mouth shut, and to never ask questions. 

The forest floor was thick with dead leaves, gnarled roots and fallen trees. She almost fell numerous times, yet managed to right herself at the last second. Always grabbing hold of the nearest tree, ears attuned to the barking of the hounds in the distance, and the shouts of men. Other people ordered to go looking for Lady Katherine. It was difficult to see the dim lantern Trevor carried so far ahead, but Darcy trudged on, focusing on that blurred prick of light in the dark. Wheezing, after what seemed like hours of trying to keep up, Darcy leaned against a tree and watched the dim outlines of Trevor and Lady Katherine enter a small cabin in the thick of the woods. 

And she waited. And waited. 

Trevor had to be a vampire, a blood demon like Darcy’s lords, for the flitting speed he took off with when he finally emerged from the cabin. There was a hearth burning inside, casting shadows. Darcy counted three, if her eyesight could be believed. She lived in a world blurred in the periphery, like smudges, and nothing was ever quite clear. Perhaps Lord Elijah should have chosen another servant? One with better eyesight, such as Hattie? She was older, but she could see a fly in the dark. Perhaps she would have been more well-equipped for the task?

Of course, Darcy had no time to fully consider it. Once it became obvious that Lady Katherine would remain inside for the foreseeable future, Darcy hiked her skirts and began the sprint back to the estate. On the return trip, she stopped to leave a trail. Ripping strips from the hem of her skirts, Darcy tied them on the thin, low hanging branches, before continuing on as quickly as possible. She had a vague sense of where to find her lords on the grounds, but her eyesight didn’t help matters, as she stumbled out of the woods. 

Part of her considered, briefly, if anyone would be able to distinguish the flutter of her dark brown strips of skirt knotted on little branches? Part of her also wondered if it would have been more effective to cut herself and leave a trail of blood in her wake. Vampires were blood demons, after all. Weren’t they? Like wolves, would they follow the scent? 

“My lords!” called Darcy, sprinting across the expansive lawn near the gardens, focusing on the cluster of dim lanterns near the pond. “My lords!” 

It should not have been possible, for there had not been anyone in her way before, but… Suddenly there was, and she slammed into what felt like a stone wall. The air left her chest in a whoosh, and she was falling backwards, but Darcy never landed on the ground. Hands shot out and grabbed her, stopping the descent and lifting her up. It was so quick, like the flitter flutter of moth wings around a flame, too fast to truly know if it was all real. Then she was settled on solid ground, standing straight, no longer falling. 

“I take it that you have located Lady Katherine?” questioned Lord Elijah, almost imperial in his demeanor. For however brutish and uncouth Lords Klaus and Kol could be, Elijah was far more regal, collected. Nothing ever seemed to ruffle his proverbial feathers. Darcy could only dream of being so noble. “Where has she gone?” 

“Cabin in the woods, my Lord,” Darcy told him, still panting from the running, the sprinting, the overall overexertion of doing her masters’ bidding. “With Trevor, and two others. I ripped pieces of my skirts and tied them to the lower branches of trees on the way back - I thought it would help, my Lord!” 

Darcy was dazzled by the flash of perfect, white teeth as Lord Elijah smiled down at her, obviously pleased, and he told her so. Very pleased. He called her intelligent. She could have swooned, or would have, if Lord Klaus had not stormed up at that moment. Instead of the aforementioned swooning, Darcy curtsied, eyes downcast, and obeyed her lord and masters when told to retire for the night. 

There had been no sleeping, however. 

No one in the estate slept that night. No one survived that night, either. Except for Darcy, much to her surprise. 

There had been a howl, or roar, of indignation that echoed through the woods, while Darcy had been undressing for bed. The sound had seemed so far away, and then so close. That howl of rage reverberated through the castle, paired with screams and shouts that were cut short. She knew better than to go looking, choosing to extinguish her candle and hide in the darkest corner of the room, pressed between the wall and the small wardrobe that always left her clothes smelling of damp and mildew. She covered her mouth, flinching as the door eventually opened, but not with a bang, or harsh boom. It creaked, slowly, and a shadow slipped inside, blurred by the low, flickering light of a candle flame. The sounds of a rampage were muffled, only slightly, when the door was closed. Chaos and death, growing closer and closer. 

A bleeding wrist was thrust into her face, and thank God for her hand already covering her mouth, stifling the shriek at the suddenness of it all. 

“Drink,” came Lord Elijah’s voice; quiet, a rushed whisper. “Quickly!” 

He looked worried, what little she could see. The realization that Lord Elijah, always so impervious to everything, had the glint of fear in his dark eyes, made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Coupled with the sounds of violent death growing ever nearer, Darcy was downright terrified, but she did as she was told. Lord Elijah had never even raised his voice to her in the many years of her service, let alone acted as if to harm her in any way. He had always been gentle, congenial, pleasant. 

Nice. 

He had always been nice. 

Darcy stopped drinking the blood flowing from his wrist when he pulled away, apologetic eyes meeting her large, doe-eyed gaze. He whispered to her, hurried but soft, “I’m sorry, dear Darcy… I’m sorry.” 

And then he was gone. In the blink of an eye. Darcy would have thought it was all a trick of the mind, if not for the tang of blood congealing in her mouth. She swallowed that last mouthful, wiping at the cold substance sticking to her chin, and waiting. Listening. Wincing, as she covered her mouth again to minimize the harsh intakes of breath and whimpers as the screams grew more shrill, feminine, terrified. All cut short, punctuated by the thud of something malleable and wet against the stone floors. 

Death came quickly. 

The door to her cramped room was torn off its hinges, and the monster found her quickly, as if he could see perfectly in the dark. There were no windows in her little hovel of a room, no flickering candle to light the way. Nothing. Just darkness. 

There was no doubt in her mind that the monster was male, a demon in the night. He was drenched in blood and gore, she could smell it, and when she was dragged from her hiding place, crushed to the chest of a tall man, she felt the way his shirt was wet and sticky. 

It all happened so fast, and Darcy didn’t even scream. 

Something lunging for her throat. Sharp teeth ripping into her flesh. Vicious suckling. And there was nothing Darcy could do to stop it. He was so much stronger than her, the bones of her arms crushed under his grip as he kept her there, flush against his front. A pitiful existence flashed before her eyes as her life was drained away, and then hands on her face. There were hands on her face, then… 

_ Crack... _


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's some Russian in this chapter, very small, but notated with * and butchered translation in the notes at the bottom. 
> 
> Starting off Post-Snap. Deviating a bit from Endgame plot. 
> 
> Darcy and Nat are ballet bros.

CHAPTER ONE

  
  


2020

Avengers Facility

Upstate New York

  
  


Darcy woke with a jolt, asleep and then suddenly awake, alert, and clutching at her throat. A quick glance around her room proved there were no monstrous Originals in the dark ready to pounce. Only her walls lined in bookcases, stuffed with first editions through the centuries and modern paperbacks, tchotchkes from Europe and wittled figurines from the founding days of the New World. A week’s worth of clothes remained strewn over her bedroom floor, just where she’d left them. There were boxes in the corner that she had yet to unpack, unable to bring herself to open them. Packing them up had been brutal enough. Darcy didn't think she would ever be up for looking through them. 

It had been almost a decade since she had woken from _that_ particular dream. It had been over five hundred years since she lived it, firsthand. The fear, blood, pain. Waking up in the midst of such gore, a literal warpath.

The night she died…

With a shake of her head, Darcy threw off the watercolor splashed duvet, leaning over to the mini-fridge next to the bed and pulling out two bags of B+. She padded into the little kitchenette, pulling out a glass bowl and starting the faucet. She started up the coffeemaker, while the blood warmed up under the water pouring from the faucet in the sink, drinking both bags down quickly before indulging in a cup of mocha espresso. Then she spent an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom. 

Shower, brush teeth, blow dry bangs and pin her long hair in a tight bun. Then makeup, gray tights, black leotard, gray wrap skirt and scuffed ballet slippers. She grabbed a small duffel bag, tossing in the pointe shoes she was breaking in (a gift from Natasha upon moving into the Avengers Facility) and a change of clothes for the rest of the day. Simple black skinny jeans and a fitted v-neck in gray. 

The color scheme was sort of her thing at the moment. Blacks, grays, with red lips and a cat eye. Cheerful colors didn’t seem quite appropriate following the Snap. Even two years later, it felt as though the world was still mourning. God knew, Darcy still was. 

Jane was gone. Just gone. Mid-conversation about atmospheric something-something over Wakanda, and then Jane was literally, no fucking metaphor needed, turning to ash. Ash in the wind, literally. Darcy had watched it happen, no clue as to what was going on. She was simply listening to Jane one second, and utterly alone the next. 

Thor had disappeared to New Asgard in Norway, but no one had heard from him since the remaining Avengers had flown off into space to try and get the Infinity Stones. All they had managed to do was confront the Titan responsible for the loss of trillions. He had destroyed the Stones before they arrived, according to Natasha. Thor had still beheaded Thanos, as if that meant anything after the fact. He was obviously deep in some PTSD, God of Thunder failed everyone shit. Not even Darcy had been able to pull him out of it. 

Then he just left without a word. 

Two years later, Darcy had finally agreed to move into the Avengers Facility in Upstate New York. After spending most of Jane and her combined savings to properly transport the astrophysicist’s lab equipment and furniture into storage in Brooklyn, Darcy had managed to compel herself a cozy little apartment and started working in a hole-in-the-wall diner in Williamsburg, same burrough. 

Apparently, Lady Katherine wasn’t the only person with a doppelganger. Darcy had kept track of a few of her own throughout the years, and found one Max Black in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Roughly the same age, if a bit older than Darcy when she was turned into a vampire, and utterly identical. Max Black was known for disappearing once every blue moon, and following the Snap, she had disappeared with her roommate. Darcy had watched the girl years before, checking up on her look-alike, and remembered the brash demeanor and shamelessness the young woman had exuded. A rough life equalling a hard exterior, not one for letting people in, mostly. 

Darcy had even compelled herself into Max’s apartment. 

Of course, working in a seedy diner post-Snap, pretending to be another version of herself, hadn’t been very lucrative. It was a good enough cover, though. She did mostly what Max did in her life; baking, being rude to customers, sleeping around. Darcy didn’t sleep around, but it was easy enough to keep up the lie. The only survivors that new Max from before Thanos disappeared half the world’s population were the owner, Han, and Oleg, the cook. It did take getting used to the natural body odor and sleeveless shirts Oleg wore, and the shrill voice of Han. But it was easy enough to be Max, for a time. If there was something off about her, it was attributed to the Snap. Oleg had lost his wife and child. Han had lost his mother. Everyone had lost someone, or everyone. No one really wanted to talk about it. 

Quickly, Natasha (the Black freaking Widow!) had tracked Darcy down. She showed up during a late night shift at the diner, Captain America and a scarred man (Brock Rumlow, formerly Crossbones, formerly scarred triple agent for Shield during the Hydra uprising) in tow, only a few months following the annihilation of half the population. That had been a rather tense meeting, considering Darcy had treated them like anyone else. There wasn’t a need to let them know she knew who they were, because she was Max Black. She would have even left them for the new waitress, some Millennial that couldn’t go five minutes without checking her Instagram, but the way Rumlow had snapped at her for attention… 

Well…

_“Waitress?” snapping his fingers overhead as she set a new bottle of ketchup down on one of her occupied tables. “Can you hear me? Waitress?”_

_“Rumlow, no,” warned Steve Rogers, Captain America and all around Adult Boy Scout. He’d even been burning red in the cheeks with embarrassment. “Don’t -”_

_“Hi, what can I get ya?” Darcy cut him off, sliding up to their booth with an almost feral smile, chewing her gum obnoxiously._

_“Yeah,” answered Rumlow, gaze lingering on the overabundance of chest she possessed for only a few seconds before he looked up with a confident smirk. “Can we get some coffee -”_

_She snapped her fingers in his face, successfully cutting him off and shocking him in one swift move, “Oh, I’m sorry. Is that annoying?” She snapped her fingers a few more times in his face, “Is that obnoxious and rude?” She snapped her fingers in his face twice more for good measure, “Would you find it distracting if someone did that to you while you were working? Oh, wait - Picking up drunk chicks in bars doesn't qualify as a real job. Sorry.”_

_Cap and Nat, at the time, had smirked, covered their mouths to stifle laughs, and/or snorted, while Rumlow sat there looking as if Darcy had physically slapped him. Yeah, she remembered him from New Mexico. And she may have gotten drunk and slept with his arrogantly good looking ass after that whole Destroyer business._

_“Max!” had come the shrill, girlish shriek of Han from across the small diner. “What do you think you are doing! You know -”_

_“Hush, Unaccompanied Minor!” Darcy had said, holding her hand up to stave the high rising pitch of Han’s should-be-male-but-not voice, before returning her focus on Rumlow. “Now, you think this,” she snapped her fingers in his face again, “is the sound that gets you service. I think this,” snapped her fingers two more times, “is the sound that dries up my vagina.”_

_Now, there had been no reason for Cap to choke, because he wasn’t eating or drinking anything, but somehow he managed it. She assumed, at the time, he was coughing on his own sense of propriety and 1940s manners, and Natasha had simply sat next to Blushing, White and Blue snickering. Come to find out, he was choking on the fact that (despite being out of the ice for close to 10 years), he had never heard a woman say, ‘vagina,’ out loud, in public. So, technically, Darcy had been right, thinking he was choking on his own Boy Scout, Sweet As Apple Pie ideals._

_It had only taken a few moments before Rumlow snapped out of his own shock, or surprise, and grinned, laughing hysterically._

Of course, that had been the beginning. Cap and Nat returned once or twice a month for the last two years, until Darcy had finally caved. 

That first meeting had been a huge awakening for Darcy, having noticed the unbelievably amazing scent rolling off Cap immediately upon his entering the diner. It had been a struggle to stay in character, and keep her eyes from going all Blood Demon-y. There was something about Cap’s natural scent and the rush of blood warming his cheeks in his embarrassment, something in his blood that made her almost drool. It smelled better than peach cobbler, her favorite food since its inception, despite being a vampire, hungry for and reliant on blood. 

With that in mind, Darcy had been reticent to move into the upstate facility. Every time Cap and Nat showed up in the diner, there was a spike in her hunger, and Darcy spent a good portion of the night bar hopping, feeding and compelling more than just one person. That was her usual limit, one person in one night once a week. A whiff of Cap? Darcy was feeding off almost ten people in one night, compelling them to forget about it and drink orange juice. It wouldn’t be such a high number of bodies if she wasn’t afraid of killing them. It was like a frenzy, and even sating her hunger didn’t help with the unbelievable arousal. 

Literally, so fucking horny. 

It was like Cap exuded pheromones, or sex pollen. Every time he showed up, it was a guarantee Darcy would go on a bender that night. Dry humping against the people she fed on, trying to maintain control so she didn’t kill anyone. In the week since moving into the facility, Darcy was in constant proximity with Cap. At least once a day, at minimum. It was intoxicating, but awful, at the same time. 

For Vampires, everything was amplified. Emotions, senses, awareness. Everything. Which meant hunger was ten times worse, and sexual desire was un-fucking-bearable. Even for Darcy, who had been doing the whole vampire thing for over 500 years. She had also been grieving the loss of Jane, who had been her only real friend since she was turned. She had never really allowed herself to become attached to anyone since she became an Immortal. 

There was her maker, Elijah (an Original vampire), but that relationship was tenuous, at best. Every so often, they gravitated towards each other, but Elijah had always been more hyper focused on Klaus. She actively avoided Kol. She had met Damon Salvatore in Boston during the late 19th century, but met his brother, Stefan, during the Second World War while he was serving on the frontlines, and Darcy had been a combat nurse stationed in France. Damon had always been good for a bender, of sorts. Wild nights of drinking and sex that lasted days or weeks, before Darcy and he got bored and went their separate ways. Of course, she hadn’t stayed in touch with either Salvatore brother since deciding college sounded fun, and hearing the Originals were in Virginia, somewhere. She didn’t know what had happened to any of them - Salvatores or Mikaelsons.

To be honest, Darcy was a little startled, but not surprised that the entire vampire population of the world had skated by unscathed by Thanos. Being undead seemed to be the loophole in the whole “turning to ash” thing. Couldn’t be eligible for random selection by cosmic gemstones if you weren’t technically alive anymore. Darcy couldn’t decide if it was a perk, or a curse. 

“You’re up early,” came Nat’s calm, steady voice from the entrance to the training room. “Something on your mind?” 

The buxom vampire huffed a rather undignified breath, taking a break from stretching and warm-ups to sit next to Natasha on the polished floor. Switching out of her worn slippers and leg warmers, rotating her ankles before she finally answered Natasha, “Nightmare.”

“Same one?” asked the former Soviet assassin, nonchalant, but always fishing for more information from Darcy. She didn’t like a puzzle she couldn’t figure out. “The Snap?”

“No,” she shook her head, glancing over for a moment before making a decision. “It was a bad memory. About my death.” 

“Oh?” 

It remained a game of sorts, like Twenty Questions, with Nat about vampires. How old Darcy truly was. How she had turned. What she had done, or could do. Cap knew Darcy was a vampire, but he didn’t question her about it. He was curious, but he had said once, ‘I’m not sure if I really want to know.’ 

Natasha did. The red head was always trying to slip in a subtle question to trip Darcy up, get a little more information than the brunette was willing to give. The red head was never one to push when it came to information, but she liked to flex her interrogation techniques, almost slipping them in under the radar. As mentioned, Natasha treated it like a game. Twenty Questions meet Cat and Mouse. 

There was the Shield known information about Darcy Elizabeth Lewis, and that was more or less what the immortal stuck with. What she had constructed had been a seemingly flawless identity, despite the fact that it was the first time in a century since she had been able to be Darcy Lewis again. And with less servitude to Original vampires. 

Natasha and Steve had stumbled onto the fact that Darcy was a vampire by trailing her through Brooklyn on feeding nights. They just didn’t know much else. It was what Nat had used to persuade Darcy into moving into the Avengers compound. No one else would need to know, and Nat would personally see to it that Darcy was well stocked in B+ blood from a clean blood bank. They needed her help, and Darcy had spent years encrypting Jane’s research, coding the programs, and managing the astrophysicist’s day to day operation, and life. They also needed more allies, and a vampire with the strength to match Captain America would be an asset to the remaining team. 

At the time, Darcy found it far more appealing than living a dead woman’s life. Pun intended. 

“I don’t like discussing it,” Darcy brushed off the gentle inquiry, doing a few more stretches on the floor, while Nat stood up and began warm ups. She decided to change topics, “ _Le Papillon?_ ” 

“Never cared for it,” shrugged Nat, going through postures, points and pliés, and then switching to Russian when Steve came in for his early morning massacre of the punching bags because he couldn’t sleep, either. *“Krasnaya komnata byla strogo sovetskoy, tak chto...” 

“Mat' Rossiya, naskol'ko ty chist,” Darcy replied, almost stilted as she tensed at the explosion of Steve’s scent when he walked by towards the boxing equipment. “Maybe we should pick up in Act 3 of _Swan Lake?_ Or there’s _Pâquerette_ _?_ ” 

“Your choreography for _Swan Lake_ ,” answered Nat, sitting next to Darcy on the floor to go through more stretches. “It’s more challenging. I like it.” 

“Act 3, it is,” said Darcy, with a smug sort of smirk. “Innovation trumps traditionalism when it comes to dance.” 

So, they danced, while Steve annihilated seven punching bags. Darcy allowed herself to get lost in the music and the nostalgia of learning when ballet first arrived in France. Catherine de Medici, Queen of France, had brought it over from Italy, and, at the time, Darcy had been a few decades away from her one-hundred year anniversary of immortality. She’d been a serving girl, always able to slip out of the King’s grasp without consequence, when the Queen had taken notice. Darcy was brought in under the woman’s wing, trained up, a member of the Queen’s _Flying Squadron_. 

_Escadron volant._

Catherine de Medici enjoyed watching Darcy dance, something otherworldly about the eternally young woman. 

It was sad that Darcy had to fake her death after less than a decade in the Queen’s service. 

“Does she ever take a break?” asked Steve, whispering with Natasha from the edge of the polished floors. “It’s been four hours.” 

“There’s no need to whisper, Rogers,” replied Natasha, sitting down with a bottle of water. “She has better hearing than you.” 

Cap wasn’t the only one with enhanced hearing. Darcy could hear him perfectly. Steve huffed, plopping down next to the red head with his own bottle of water, dispersing air around him that smelled of sweat tinged with that natural musk of his; warm, sweet citrus and honey; that hint of blood underneath the surface of golden, muscled skin. The intoxicating smell that caused Darcy to falter during her _ouetté en tournant,_ ankle cocking inward at an odd angle, weight displacement causing the bones to break as she fell. 

“Fuck,” growled Darcy, feeling the slithering sensation of blackened blood vessels and veins as her eyes shifted from pacific blue to ‘feeding-demon.’ “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

Steve, bless his beating heart, still seemed to forget that Darcy healed far more quickly than even he did. He was at her side in seconds, as if she were some damsel in distress, and she couldn’t hide the change of her eyes from him, because ( _dammit)_ he smelled so fucking good. Even through the pain of a broken ankle, she wanted to climb him like a tree, feed, and ride him harder than bucking bronco. 

“I’m fine,” she groaned, pushing up off the hardwood floor until she was sitting. Darcy held up a hand to stop Steve from touching her, or getting too close. She even turned her face away, fractionally, so he couldn’t fully see the demon-esque appearance her eyes took on when she was feeding, or injured, or aroused. He’d seen it once, when Nat and he caught her feeding months ago, and she didn’t want to experience him recoil, again. “Just… Don’t, Steve. I’m fine.” 

Leg positioned straight, foot quirked at a wrong angle, Darcy stretched the length of herself and righted the joint with an audible snap and grunt of pain. It took mere minutes before she could rotate her ankle, as if nothing had happened, and the pain dissipated into a vague soreness. Her head was still tilted away from his gaze, willing herself to calm down, relax. It was hard, though. She was suffocating on Steve’s scent, and he hadn’t moved away, just stayed there at her side, hovering, waiting. 

It didn’t help that Darcy had gotten to know Steve Rogers over the last two years, and had developed actual _feelings_ for the man. Blasted vampire-ness. She was pretty sure she was in love with him, but there was no plausible way that he could, or would, feel the same way about her. But she refused to sever the connection with her own humanity in order to protect herself from his rejection. 

Fucking fuckit, fuck. 

Before anyone could say anything more, Darcy was gone in a blink. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Nat: The Red Room was strictly Soviet, so… 
> 
> Dar: Mother Russia, how pure you are..


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kind of just a filler chapter, but I tried to throw in a little vampire lore a la Vampire Diaries and a splash of humor, a little subtle twist. I'm sort of just having fun with it, so... 
> 
> No regrets.

CHAPTER TWO

  
  


“You know Rogers is interested, right?” 

Darcy’s eyes snapped open from where she was dozing on the communal couch, unable to make it through _Breakfast at Tiffany’s_ without falling asleep. It was the rain scene that always did her in. Every time. Coupled with the gloomy weather that had decided to park it over the compound, and the fact that she had misplaced her daylight ring _again_ , Darcy was shuffling around half-asleep during the day, sticking to the enclosed hallways and spaces with no windows and artificial lighting. But it didn’t mean she was too overly tired to scoff at what Natasha was saying. 

“I call bluff,” Darcy sniffed, groggy and shifting on the couch to find a more comfortable position. “Steve physically recoiled when he saw what I was - _am._ He’s too goody two shoes to be into a creature like me.” 

“You’re a vampire, not the Swamp Thing,” cracked Natasha, shoving Darcy’s legs over the edge of the couch and plopping down with a large bag of popcorn. She had the remote in her hand, flipping through options on Netflix, seemingly bored. “I flinched when I saw your eyes that first time, too. Or do vampires not have perfect memory recall?” 

Darcy flipped and flopped around on the couch, until her head was resting in Natasha’s lap, “But you’re into the supernatural, ‘what else is out there’ stuff. Steve is Captain America, and a God fearing man from the mid-20th century that chokes when a woman says ‘vagina’ in a public place. He is definitely not interested in me.” 

“You know Barnes was a shifter, right?” questioned Nat, eyebrow cocked eloquently as the busty brunette turned onto her back to look up at her. “And Rogers was definitely into all that from the sounds coming from their shared apartment in the Tower.” 

Darcy snorted, “One, that sounds super hot -” 

“Super soldier hot -”

“Two,” Darcy continued, “there’s no such thing as shifters. Werewolves, yes. Shifters, no. Nada - Unless he was a hybrid.” 

“A hybrid?” Nat seemed confused, or cautious. 

Darcy nodded, “It’s a recent thing. Or was… A vampire wolf, basically. Can shift at will, drinks blood, stronger than an ordinary vampire, but not stronger than an Original -”

“Original?”

“You’d think Shield and Hydra would have known about all this,” humphed Darcy. “For a secret government agency infiltrated by an evil secret organization, you’ve all been clueless to the seedy underbelly of the supernatural.” 

“That was Coulson and Fury’s thing,” quipped Nat, almost sarcastically, “not mine.” 

It still surprised Darcy that Hydra and Shield had no files on immortal beings, or vampires, or werewolves, or witches. Really, anything to do with the secret world living amongst mortals. There were beings in the world that not even Darcy had come across in all her centuries, but she knew they were real. How could Shield know about super-powered humans, but not vampires? There was plenty of proof throughout history to substantiate that blood dependent immortal beings existed. It wasn’t like all vampires were “amazing” at staying under the radar. Vlad the Impaler came to mind as a perfect example. There was also Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed, the Hungarian Countess that not only fed on her young, pretty female servants, but drained them like gutted animals and bathed in their blood. 

That woman had been fucking insane, in Darcy’s opinion. Like, begging to be marched on by an army of devout mortals and staked through the heart. And no amount of fresh blood from pretty girls could have helped that woman’s pitted complexion from a pox in her childhood, or the detached, crazed look in the woman’s eyes. Poor thing was turned at the harsh looking age of 40, and that hadn’t helped her steady decline into madness. The bloodlust hadn’t benefited her, at all, either. 

Off topic, though. 

“What were we talking about, again?” asked Darcy, brows furrowed, and then suddenly that warm, citrusy honey aroma that was Steve Rogers curled through her senses like smoke rising from a cigar. 

“Hey, Nat,” called Steve, footfalls signifying his journey to the kitchen. His tone shifted when he addressed the brunette, “H-Hi, Darcy. What are you gals talkin’ about?”

Darcy tensed, clenching her eyes and flopping over to press her face against Nat’s stomach. Inappropriate as fuck, but there was something about the assassin’s laundry detergent that muffled Cap’s delicious scent. Additionally, Natasha had a natural scent that was oddly calming. She did noticed how Nat tensed, thighs pressing together a little.

“Debating whether or not Barnes was a hybrid or a shifter,” answered Natasha, selecting something on Netflix and tossing the remote onto the coffee table. Darcy could hear it. The volume was on a low setting, the redhead taking into consideration Darcy's extremely sensitive ears. “Darcy says there’s no such thing as shifters, only vampire-werewolf hybrids.”

“You’re too nosy for your own good, Nat,” scoffed Steve, opening and closing things in the kitchen. “Buck wasn’t a vampire-werewolf hybrid, or whatever. Not from what I could tell.” 

Nat snickered, while Darcy perked, now curious to know more about the former Winter Soldier. Steve hardly talked about him since the Snap, from what she could tell. At first, there was a taint around Cap, when they first met in the diner in Williamsburg. Like he was mourning someone very close, very loved. Darcy could relate, and therefore had never questioned it. Everyone had been mourning, most still were. It was definitely interesting to hear the tone Steve used when he mentioned Bucky Barnes after the initial shock and a couple years had passed. 

“When did you find out he was a wolf?” asked Darcy, genuinely interested and trying to be respectful of whatever relationship he had had with the former Hydra asset. She could have sworn Cap was straight, but she could have been wrong all along. “Was it during the war? Full moon after his first kill?” 

Darcy had pushed herself up, peering over Nat’s shoulder into the kitchen, tilting her head a little to keep her nose close to the woman’s clothes or hair - anything to stifle Steve’s scent. It must have looked quite risque, because the man’s eyebrows were almost touching his hairline when he looked up from making a stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; the sight of two women presumably pressed close together, Darcy’s large, doll-like blue eyes peeking out from the crook of Nat’s shoulder. He was very easily startled with close proximity that alluded to anything remotely sexual. 

“Am I interrupting something?” There was a slight hitch to his voice, a fraction of an octave higher than usual. Yep, he was definitely uncomfortable, and a little… tense? Jealous? Surprised?

“No,” said Darcy, while Nat answered with a slightly strained, but smug, “Yes.” 

Darcy shushed her, shaking her head at Steve with a smirk, “I’m just curious. Shifters, hypothetically, would be able to transform at will, without the full moon, and wolves are more… It’s like a curse in specific families. Originating in the Americas, I think? A dormant gene that’s only triggered by taking a life. Then that person goes through the transformation every full moon, but can’t change at will, just, whenever. Unless they have a moonlight ring, and those are really rare.” 

“Uh,” Steve’s mouth was agape, trying very hard to process the information Darcy was actually, willingly, providing. She usually bordered on flirtatious withholding and reluctance, because the supernatural world was a secret for a reason. “Bucky… wasn’t any of those things during the war.” 

“So, it had something to do with Hydra?” questioned Darcy, dipping her nose down to the slope of Nat’s neck for a micro-sniff, and registering a hint of arousal from the woman. She had just meant to get another nostril-full of Nat to combat Steve's scent, and now it was becoming very interesting. “Interesting.” 

“What?” asked Steve, catching the shift in Darcy’s expression, most likely. “Is something wrong with Nat?”

“Darcy,” hissed Nat, crossing her legs and shifting minutely to focus on the documentary on the television. Something about penguins. “If you so even -”

“She’s fine, Steve,” Darcy snickered, waving him back to the kitchen and his huge stack of sandwiches. “Is that a new perfume, Tasha? Smells nice.” 

“I need to check and see if the raccoon responded to my last email,” Nat said, getting up abruptly and hurrying out of the communal space in a frustrated huff. “Shut it, Darcy!” 

Darcy had been unbalanced and fell backwards onto the floor, trying not to laugh, but also very intrigued by the woman’s reaction to the vampire being so up close and personal. She really shouldn’t have mentioned it, or teased the woman about it, in any way, but scents were kind of Darcy’s specialty. Like wolves, vampires had a hypersensitive olfactory sense, and Darcy had always been able to sniff out microscopic changes in others. She also had finely tuned hearing. She assumed due to being almost blind as a mortal human, and her other senses being better than average, it was something that transferred over when she came back after Klaus had… 

Well, when she was turned. 

“Is she okay?” questioned Steve, talking and chewing his third sandwich. 

Popping up to her feet, Darcy nodded, while adjusting her breasts and clothes. Leggings, clingy shirts, and underwire bras always seemed to twist about when dozing or lounging on furniture. Steve was just standing in the kitchen, watching her with intent, food half processed in his open mouth. Not an attractive look, but it boosted Darcy’s ego, just a little. She had to try and not press her thighs together for friction, appear care-free and nonchalant, fight the urge to breathe deeply and dry hump Steve like a very muscly pillow. 

Two years of sporadic interaction, and three months of constant proximity in the compound, and Darcy still experienced a very strong reaction to the super soldier. Her vibrators couldn’t keep up with the amount of use they were getting. She had even propositioned Rumlow the week before. Blood lust and physical lust overload were going to be the death of Darcy. 

Er… The true death of Darcy?

Bad pun. Bad, bad pun. 

Or metaphor?

Whatever. 

“So, anyway,” Darcy broke the silence, and the staring contest going on between herself and Cap. “Great talk. I’m gonna go, uh, help Nat with those emails from the… raccoon.” 

Instead of zipping away at vampire speed, Darcy just turned and started for the exit, like a normal, ordinary human. No need to flee. She could handle the cravings and the pull to Steve Rogers, being in the same space as him. She was over five-hundred years old, she had never killed a single person in all that time, as a human nor as a vampire. It was something she was insanely proud of, despite persistent outside influences like the Originals, deathbots in the desert, alien trickster gods, Dark Elves and Thanos. 

She could control her primal urges. 

“Hey, Darcy?” 

The soft intake of breath is what stopped her at the exit, but the nervousness in his voice is what made Darcy turn around to face him. There was an openness about his features, a bit of a clench in the jaw that was visible now that he wasn’t sporting a beard, and a hint of fear, like a young man asking out a girl for the first time. It was endearing, and for the first time in a long time (centuries) Darcy felt that tentative clench of her reanimated, sluggishly beating, undead heart. 

“Yes?” was her reply, cautious and (almost) hesitant. 

“I, uh,” he cleared his throat, and forced his head back up to meet her gaze, determined. “I know it’s a stupid question, because you don’t actually need to eat food, but… Would you ever consider having dinner with me, sometime? Just us?” 

There was a rush of excitement, pressure lifting off of her, and Darcy smiled - no, beamed. She was beaming, like the world was a little less gray and there was a little more hope in the world. And she didn’t even regret feeling that way. 

“Ye-Yes,” she nodded, a little too enthusiastically, but she was a vampire and her emotional reactions would always be _more._ “I’d love to have dinner with you.”

He grinned, and that was adorable, too. “Tomorrow, then? My rooms? That way you don’t have to stress about finding that ring - I heard it’s missing.” 

“My daylight ring, yeah,” she licked her plump lips, pressing them together with a nod, before another smile broke through. “That’d be nice, Steve. Very considerate. Thank you. I’ll knock around eight.” 

“It’s a date, then,” he huffed out a breath around a grin. “I’ll keep my eye out for that ring, too.” 

“Thank you,” she replied, still beaming like a dazed mortal as she started moving again. "I'm gonna check on Tasha..." 

  
  



End file.
